A Lipstick Library

Lipstick represents the ultimate beauty purchase to me. It’s the one thing that changes your look, alters your mood, acts as armour, as support, and a boost to the sartorial psyche?

Yes, it’s only lipstick, but seriously though – think about your experience of it through your life – I bet you remember your first one, right? Mine was a dodgy, pearly, baby pink from No7 that came in one of those plastic-wrapped ?gift baskets?.
You’ll also, no doubt recall your favourite shade that was disappointingly discontinued – Stila I’m looking at you.? You’ll re-count those tones you bought because they were the shade of the season (or decade), but on look-back they made you appear half dead. Dark lip-liner with a pale, pale nude inside – la Janet Jackson in the nineties? WHAT was I thinking? Janet, I am not, nor never will I be.

Then finally, as we grow up a little, around the time we learn to love our complexion as we were given, we find The One – the lipstick tone that actually suits us, in a texture that we like to wear. It takes a certain confidence to get to that zone; when we are no longer influenced so heavily by sales assistants or music videos on MTV.

All the above escapades result in quite the lipstick library in our makeup bags and bathrooms – comprised mainly of the near misses and almost-rans of beauty. So when I saw this very beautiful box of lip lovelies to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of L?Or?al Colour Riche, I admit to feeling the flutters of my initial fascination with becoming a makeup artist (which I did).

Parallel to that memory, this box evoked the sheer loveliness of makeup – it’s girlieness, the sheer fun of it and the joy of opening a new lipstick tube to try on. Colour Riche welcomes 14 new shades to the collection this year, so go get some of this iconic colour on your lips. I am.

And my favourite shades from this coveted collection for the grown up I am? Nude235 for day and Blake’s Pure Red for night. The search is called off.

@elliebalfe